Dunked the hell on by Josh McRoberts."This has to be the low point of his (or anyone's) NBA career"(via AK Dave)

[Note: Dan B. here reporting for early morning duty. Basketbawful himself started this post, but since his Internet connection is unavailable at the moment, I'm finishing it up for him. We are combining for a better team effort than the Cavaliers managed last night at least.]

The Cleveland Cavaliers: After beating down LeBron's new team on Monday night, the Pacers decided to do things right by pimp-slapping LeBron's old team on Tuesday. Just for good measure. Don't let the 100-89 final score fool you: Indy led by as many as 34 points in this one.

Cleveland's starters scored only 32 points. Joey Graham (11 points) was the only one who reached double figures. And even then, Graham had the best plus-minus of all Cleveland starters at -21.

Byron Scott, coach of the year candidate: "This isn't even close to rock bottom. It's a good test for us. This team and this franchise have not had to play through adversity in the last seven years. The Pacers are a pretty good team and we played that bad."

The Atlanta Hawks: They've joined the Miami Heat in the "We've gone from only beating bad teams to getting beaten by bad teams" club. That's right: The Dirty Birds lost to the Nyets. All I can say is...

...BROOK LOPEZ SMASH!!

Big Brooklies had a season-high 32 points, Devin Harris added 27, and the Hawks didn't have the firepower to match up. With the Nyets.

Said Avery Johnson: "TWO GUYS THAT WE RELY ON HEAVILY CAME THROUGH. NOW WHAT I'M SHOWING THEM IS IF THEY CAN CONSISTENTLY HAVE THAT AGGRESSION AND THAT ATTACKING ATTITUDE, IT MAKES US A BETTER BALL CLUB. THEY DON'T HAVE MANY NIGHTS WITH THIS TEAM WHERE THEY CAN TAKE OFF."

Joe Johnson: 6-for-18. The $119 million slump continues.

Game Recap, unintentionally dirty quote machine: Via Basketbawful reader Allison, "Word choice fail from Nets-Hawks recap on Yahoo: 'The erection of steel started at the Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn on Tuesday.' There's *got* to be a better way to put that..."

The Philadelphia 76ers: From 15-point fourth quarter lead to an overtime loss to the Wizards Generals. Make it 3-11 on the year...1-7 on the road.

The Goat of the night? It was...

Jrue Holiday: He went running at John Wall with 3.5 seconds left in regulation, committing one of the dumbest fouls of the season. Wall was at least 40 feet from the rim...but he flipped up a shot and was awarded three freebies. Johnny Storm hit all three, forcing overtime, and, well, you know what happened.

Said Holiday: "I didn't think he was shooting the 3. I honestly thought he was going to the basket. I really wasn't trying to foul him. I just got my arm in there and he went up. It was a foul."

No. It was a FAIL.

Doug Collins, coach of the year candidate: "All we had to do was just finish out the game, and we just made critical mistakes again. That's just crushing us. That's been the story of our whole first 14 games of the season. You've got to be careful because when a guy is running at you with the ball like that, you've got to know when he sees you coming that he's going to pick up and launch it."

The Chicago Bulls: Despite facing off against the league's premier frontcourt, the Bulls held their own. In fact, they shut down Pau Gasol (3-for-10), who was owned by Joakim Noah (19 points, 13 boards, 4 steals, 3 blocked shots). Chicago outrebounded L.A. and outscored them in the paint.

Unfortunately, the Lakers bench -- "the Killer Bees" as Kevin McHale is calling them -- outscored Chicago's reserves 39-10. Shannon Brown, whom I wanted the Bulls to pursue last summer, lit up his hometown team for 21 points on 7-for-14 shooting and drilled more treys (5-for-10) than the entire Bulls team (4-for-20). Brown, Steve Blake and Matt Barnes combined for four three-pointers in L.A.'s decisive 17-2 fourth quarter run.

Hands. Faces. Somebody. Please.

Bobcats-Knicks: No defense. Lots of turnovers (39 for 58 points off turnovers). Two awful teams. But hey, at least a lot of points were scored.

Pistons-Mavericks: Yes, technically the Mavs won this game 88-84. However, when the pace is that molasses-in-January-in-Siberia slow, nobody wins. Dirk Nowitzki put up some big numbers (42 points, 12 rebounds), but was apparently the only player to set his alarm clock and wake up for this game. Caron Butler was the only other Mavs starter to score double-digits, and the team as a whole only shot 38% from the field.

On the other side of the court, Detroit managed to put together a combined effort of 11 assists and 15 turnovers. Perhaps John Kuester needs to focus more on fundamentals at their next practice, such as "pass the ball to the guys wearing the same color jersey as you." Also, the tone was set early in the game, as recapped by LotharBot in the BAD comments: "Over the first 4:27 of the Pistons-Mavs game, the Pistons starters have combined to shoot 0-5, with 1 rebound and 2 turnovers, and are trailing 11-0."

Rick Carlisle, quote machine: "It was a slower-paced game, a playoff-style game." Except, you know, for the Pissed-Ons being involved.

The Miami Heat: Again via Wild Yams, we finally have an explanation for why the Heat are not a good basketball team. No, it's not because they don't have anything resembling a point guard, or because their paint is protected by two men with a combined age of 847.

Chris's Lacktion Report: Chris may be in New York for a few days, but at least he's smart enough to avoid going to a Bricks game. The stink of Purple Pauper basketball is already all over him. He'd never make it out alive if he tried to watch a Bobcats-Bricks game in person. However, that does leave him time to compile the lacktion details:

Hawks-Nyets: Maurice Evans tossed one brick from Newark Penn Station and fouled twice in 7:39 for a +3 suck differential, while for New Jersey, Stephen Graham missed one shot in 4:07 and added a foul for a +2.

Sixers-Generals: Alonzo Gee celebrated his new start with Washington by a 4-second defeat of King Koopa for a Super Mario!

Bobcats-Knicks: Nazr Mohammed, Michael Jordan's starting big man of choice, had a statline so stunning (and described as "epic" here) it has to be repeated near verbatim: 4:27 on the floor, FOUR bricks, two rejections, two fouls, for a PLUS EIGHT SUCK DIFFERENTIAL. Amazingly, this only ended up being a 2:0 Voskuhl - but this made him officially Lacktator #100 on the young Association season!!!!

Pistons-Mavs: Ian Mahinmi had himself a piece of masonry in 3:06 for a +1

More importantly, are the Crapoliers a rescue home for players that are too shitty to even make it with the Craptors? (Jamario Moon, Joey Graham) You would think such a thing was impossible - that there *is* no such thing as a player too shitty to stick with the Craptors - but there you go, folks.

I'm sorry, there were people other than two women competing for the "most cleavage" award in that video? I might have to watch it again to determine if that is so. In the name of science, you understand.

They've managed to beat New Orleans and Miami, are above .500, and plus they have Josh "Bill Russel" McRoberts who, much to my surprise, isn't a total waste of space out there. They just blew the Cavs out. They have a real point guard in Collison, and their bench is alright.

To answer last night's question, yes the Spurs have a favorable schedule w.r.t. B2Bs, as to be expected of a MST/CST team. I don't know if Pops is the kind of guy to go for regular season records like that, but I don't really question what Pops does anymore.

In addition to Hibbert, Elton Brand and Monta Ellis having comback years, Paul Millsap becoming a beast, heck even Tyler Hansborough and Francisco Garcia and Shannon Brown not being crap deserve a look at Most Improved Player.

I hate seeing my fantasy players in the lacktion report. Stupid Nazr.

And something about Darko, I don't know if there's a strong correlation to him playing defense and not getting opportunities on the offensive end, but there's a near 1.0 correlation to him getting pissed when Kevin Love is boxing him out for the rebound. In any case, I think the Wolves are finding a right balance with 8-10 FGA per game, and trusting him to be the defensive anchor (lol I know).

As for Beasley, he seems to be taking the leadership role alright, I mean it's not really a new thing to him since he basically willed that Kansas State team into the tournament. But he's just another risk on the pile of risks being taken by Kahn, the big one of course being Rubio, so I'm definitely keeping an eye on them since their upside could be a really good team (in a year or 2).

And finally, Golden State really loves their Jeremy Lin. They're almost more happy that he shuts down his man rather than winning the game.

1. The Miami-Urkel correlation is actually pretty spot on. Urkel spent most of his time dribbling around, isolating his man, and looking for his shot (mostly at the rim, just like the Miami Heat). And when he did pass, they were of the either alley-oop, flashy behind the back, or the unnecessary behind-the-back and off-the-backboard variety (!!! - that's what you do when you're down by 5 with one minute remaining?)

2. Watch for the blue team guy hoist up an open baseline jumper at the 2:08 mark, with the 5'2" Urkel not even bothering to throw a hand in his face. He overshoots it by a healthy 10 feet. Anyway, what did we actually learn from this? We learned that the blue team somehow built a 20 point lead without actually knowing how to shoot.

“The only thing surprising about it is a coach saying it about another coach in this league,” Wade said of Jackson, who has a record 11 NBA titles as coach. “I expect that from someone else to say it, but not another coach. It’s unfortunate. But I guess coach Jackson has earned the right to say what he wants, and he continues to exercise that right.”

Czernobog: It's not like I hide it. There's just no point in talking about them because they're only relevant for a few days a year when they beat a contender or two. Collison is probably the best PG we've had since Mark Jackson and Hibbert is an above average if slow footed big guy. Maybe we can be an 8 seed and get wiped out by Boston.

I don't like the Lakers bench stealing the "Killer B's" moniker. It belonged to the 2003 Nuggets bench -- Earl Boykins, Jon Barry, Ryan Bowen, and Chris "Birdman" Andersen. All four guys were known for energy/hustle plays, and they probably led the league in floor burns.

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On Phil Jackson's comments: anyone else think he's playing a mind game? He's making it that much harder for Pat Riley to step in for Spo, because if he does, the whole league will be saying "Phil Jackson called it."

Maybe we should put a countdown on this, but Miami at Cleveland is a week from tomorrow. I want to watch this game just to hear the level of booing and taunting. Can the Cleveland crowd keep up the hate for 48 minutes? Or will Lebron's determination to crush his old team rule out?

I hope TNT or ESPN puts a mic right behind the Heat bench. I'm not saying that because of Heat hatred, I'm geniunely fascinated and curious on how angry Cleveland will be.

Someone needs to record the level of vitriol in this game. It may mark a record in the number or F-bombs by one fanbase during a game.

Obviously, Jackson is playing mind games, but it can be started without looking for it. Maybe he just said what he really thought about the Miami situation, and then, seeing the reactions thought "let's see what we can get from it".

It's like Mourinho, he says lots of things to drive all attention around him, but if you're smart enough, you don't care about it, if you not, you're fooling yourself.

It happens between players as well, i.e. last week I was playing against a huge guy and he was getting big in the paint. When I started defending him, I received three atomic elbows in my head in two consecutive plays and started shouting to him things like: "you're fucking crazy!" and I realized I pissed him off because instead of playing he was more concentrated in bumping me even harder and replying back. Then we went from a tie game to 8 points above and he didn't scored anymore, also getting an ejection later. BWAHAHA! I win!

Sorry I had to share that story, I'm sure we have been in both sides of this situation.

And last thing, I'm very happy this season has begun, I was thirsty of bawful action. Your work is awesome and I can't ask for more.